Several companies bid for oil exploration

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 31. The Government has received a good response to its offer of on-shore and off-shore blocks for oil exploration. While 25 such blocks were on offer, bids have been received for 23 blocks. Today was the last day for submission of bids under the second round of New Exploration Licencing Policy (NELP).

The Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr. Ram Naik, told presspersons here today that six foreign companies and seven Indian companies, including five public sector undertakings, had bid for the 23 blocks of which eight are deep water blocks, eight shallow water and seven on-land blocks.

The foreign companies which have bid include Petrom from Romania, NIKO Resources of Canada, JTI from the United States, Hardy Oil, Cairn Energy and Heramec Limited, from the United Kingdom. The Indian private companies are Reliance Industries Limited and HOEC while the public sector units are ONGC, OIL, GAIL, IOC and Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation. The bids would be studied by the Ministry and the contracts are expected to be awarded in three to four months.

Mr. Naik also said that the third round of offer for exploration would be announced sometime in December this year, for which preparatory work has already begun.

With the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry providing exhaustive data this time, the response to the offer of blocks has improved tremendously, Mr. Naik pointed out. For instance, 48 blocks had been put on offer under the first round of the NELP and bids were received for only 27 blocks. This time, 23 out of the 25 blocks on offer have attracted bids with 12 blocks receiving multiple bids. Two blocks, one in West Bengal and the other in Uttar Pradesh failed to attract any bids and would be put on offer again after fresh and updated data is compiled about these blocks, Mr. Naik added.

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